While free-to-play games are jostling for position on the PC and mobile sector, it hasn’t been as visible on home consoles. However, having said that, there’s been a recent influx of F2P games on now-gen consoles with titles like Warframe, Blacklight and other titles making a dent now.
One of the companies making a hard push at console F2P is Sony Online Entertainment; the studio behind PlanetSide 2 and DC Universe Online.
In an interview, SOE President John Smedley reveals that console players tend to spend more compared to their PC brethren.
The PS4 has been monetizing amazingly well — between 3 and 3.5x the monetization rate of the PC…Seeing that kind of difference in pay rate between the PC and the PS4 is really astounding — it shows there’s a real market there.
However, releasing F2P games on consoles aren’t a walk in the park, either. According to Smedley, title updates — which F2P games rely on a lot — are much harder to implement due to certification and other processes.
Getting a patch that goes out on PC, PS3 and PS4 takes a hell of a lot of coordination…You have to submit the PS3 and PS4 versions separately, and they sometimes take different amounts of time to come back. Logistics are the toughest part of it.
Will that 3-3.5x statistic apply to SOE’s upcoming shooter PlanetSide 2? Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, you might be glad to know that the sci-fi shooter is set to launch its closed beta on the PS4 later this month.
[Source: Gamasutra]
